[1946] Untitled for now
Romance centered story placed in dystopian setting. Over ten years writing as hobby, first time working a story I hope to publish some day. All kind of feedback would be appreciated. Would also like to know if first chapter is something that would keep you reading on?
CHAPTER ONE — HIS NAME
The doors to the medical wing slid open with a sharp hiss. There were two square windows set into them, one on each panel, probably intended to make the place feel less institutional. Everly had thought, more times than she could count across six years of walking through these doors, that it might have helped if you could actually see through them.
She had a narrow strip of green cloth tied around her right elbow, where they had just drawn blood (the second time this year, the next was scheduled for October), when two soldiers in black Gradex uniforms pushed through in front of her. One was supporting the other, whose weight leaned heavily against him as he limped forward, jaw set hard against the pain. Both were muddy and their boots left a trail of mud on the floor. She had yet to learn their names.
Everly barely spared them a glance. It was the one who came in after them that caught her attention.
She would have recognised him anywhere. No one else in Gradex let their hair grow that long — dark and falling to his shoulders, damp from the rain outside and sticking slightly to his jaw and collar. His jacket was wet, glued to his shoulders under the dark grey Armorex-vest they were supposed to use outside of the compound. Nothing excessive in him, just the kind of build that came from use rather than effort. He was holding his right hand with his left, just below the elbow, and there was a handful of shallow scratches across his face from something she hadn’t been there to see.
Cade.
He had arrived in March. It was June now. Thirteen weeks of him moving through the compound like he had always been there, quiet in a way that was nothing like absence. He kept to himself, stood still at the edge of the room in briefings and didn’t speak if he didn’t need to. Most words she had ever heard him use in one conversation had been in the yard on the first day.
The fingers pressing the pad curled, just slightly. She flattened them against her skin and let the arm drop.
The limping soldier was guided to the nearest bed immediately. Cade took the one on the other side of the room without being told, more out of convenience than obedience, she suspected, and started rolling up what remained of his sleeve. One of the medics on shift today, the one with no name and no patience, pulled the instrument table next to the bed and settled into the chair beside it.
“It’s nothing,” Cade said.
“Blade?” the medic asked.
Cade nodded.
“Then it’s not nothing,” the medic replied flatly, already cutting away the fabric to expose the wound beneath. “Did you water it?”
Cade glanced down at his soaked clothes. One eyebrow went up.
“What does it look like?”
That earned him a look. Not from the medic. From Everly. The corner of her mouth moved before she could stop it.
He noticed. His arm moved on the table before he caught it.
“Hold still.” The medic guided the arm flat again and started cleaning the wound.
It wasn’t deep enough to be dangerous, but the edges of it told a different story, showing the damage that only the white stone of a Blade left behind. A clean cut from little above his wrist to the elbow where the stone had gone in surrounded by the specific deep red discolouration of tissue that had met something hotter than metal and yet burned without heat. The burn spreading in every direction, the way a Blade burn did until it was watered, reaching well past the line the stone had made.
Cade didn’t look at his arm. He looked at hers instead.
“That’s why you skipped the morning?”
Everly frowned and started walking. Not away, just to a better position, which was not the same thing. She was aware of the distinction even if she didn’t examine it.
“Mandatory screening. I got transferred to group five later today. Didn’t think anyone would notice.”
“Yeah.” He tilted his head and she could see the smile tugging at his lips. A quiet huff followed. “I noticed.”
She stopped a few steps away. Her gaze dropped to his arm, where the medic was halfway through the stitches. The medic turned his head, just enough to place her in his peripheral vision, then brought his eyes back to his work without meeting hers. Cade was still watching the medic when she looked at his face and said:
“Didn’t know they’d ask you.”
“They didn’t.” He turned to look at her. “Ask.”
She knew that. In Gradex you were told, not asked.
“You were late.”
“That’s what usually happens when somebody tries to kill you.” The eyebrow went up again. “Missed me?”
She kept her lips pressed together until she was sure the smile was gone. Not letting it show took more effort than it should have.
“No. We just can’t afford to lose more men right now.”
That almost made him laugh. She could see it, the way it moved through him before he contained it.
“Careful. Someone might think you care.”
“I don’t.” Too quick. She heard it even herself.
The medic pushed the needle through with more force than necessary. The next knot he drew too tight, pulling that stitch out of line with the rest. Everly’s eyes cut to him. Cade himself didn’t seem to mind.
“What happened?” she asked. An unnecessary question, and she knew it. Only one group out there had gotten their hands on Gradex weapons. Had she been out there like she would have without the bloodwork, she wouldn’t even have needed to ask.
“An echo.”
It wasn’t the first time he had given her an answer that wasn’t one.
She let her gaze settle on the wound for a moment longer than she intended. After the medic had made his point, the rest of the stitching was clean, at least. Looking the other way didn’t seem to be the only thing the nameless medic was good at.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
She brought her eyes up from the wound. “I wasn’t worried.”
The sigh came out of the chair beside Cade. She pretended she hadn’t heard it.
“Can’t be the first Blade cut you’ve seen,” Cade said. “I heard you’ve been here since the beginning.”
Like she needed him to remind her.
She brought her eyes from Cade to her arm, where a narrow strip of green cloth was tied behind her elbow. Six years ago it would have been a disposable cotton pad, but ever since Erasmus had rewritten everything and Gradex had transformed, one thin strip of cloth at a time, from a Gravity Center research compound full of scientists doing genetic mapping into a military compound where those same scientists were now searching for answers to something harder and more necessary, they had learned to replace what once was with what still remained.
She’d been cutting those strips often enough to know that there would never be a shortage of cloth. The dead had left more clothes than those still living would ever have use for.
Some adaptations had been easier than others.
“It’s not that simple.” This time there was no smile to hide.
“Didn’t say it was.” He held her gaze. “It’s just all I’ve heard.”
The medic tied off the last stitch without ceremony. He took a long strip of white fabric, an old sheet by the look of it, and wound it over the stitches. “That should do it. Try not to tear it open again.” He took a small Ekezo tube from the table and pressed it into Cade’s right hand. “And don’t forget to apply this. Twice a day for a week. It keeps the scar from drawing tight as it heals.”
“No promises.”
The medic gave Cade a disapproving look and moved off to help with the others. He didn’t look at her when he went past her. Cade kept watching the medic, then slid off the bed and flexed his arm slowly, testing the range. Everly’s eyes followed the movement before she caught herself and looked away.
He noticed that. She was fairly certain he noticed everything.
“Hey,” he said quietly, stepping closer. Close enough that she was aware of the height difference; he had nearly twenty-five centimetres on her, which she had also spent all those three months pretending not to notice. She couldn’t see the medic and the others behind him anymore. “It looks worse than it is.”
“I—”
“If you say that one more time, I might believe you.”
She didn’t answer. What she had been about to say, she couldn’t make herself finish.
His gaze moved from her face to her braids. Two Dutch braids today, all different shades of brown pulled back with a precision that had nothing to do with Gradex’s standards, falling past her shoulders and down her back. Something crossed his face. Then his hand lifted. Slow enough that she could have stepped back.
Everly went very still. She remembered how it felt: a hand twisting around a braid, pulling hard enough to force her head to the side. She also remembered the only time the hand had found her hair loose, and what had followed. The memory lived in her body more than her mind. The kind that didn’t need to be thought to be present.
The mark would always be there. One of the many.
The hand that was approaching her now closed gently around one braid. Holding it the way you’d hold something that mattered.
“See?” His thumb moved once along the braid. “Still works.”
“What does?” She heard the confusion in her own voice, unguarded in a way she hadn’t meant.
“My hand.”
The doors to the medical wing slid open again. Thomas stepped in, his uniform still wet from rain but his cropped sand-coloured hair already dry. Hands in his pockets. His eyes went to Cade then her and back to Cade. He cleared his throat.
When that didn’t get him what he’d hoped for, he said, “Cade. You need to come with me. The report still needs filing.”
Cade didn’t look at him. He took his time replacing the braid exactly where he’d found it, his fingertips brushing the bare skin above her collarbone before he turned towards the door.
Thomas waited. He didn’t appear to have a choice.
Cade was halfway across the room when Everly found her voice.
“Try not to die out there.”
The words were out before she could take them back. Quiet enough that only he would hear and completely unplanned, which was the part that bothered her most.
Cade paused. He glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes finding hers before he spoke. The smile that followed was one she hadn’t seen before. Small. It reached his eyes in a way the smirk she had come to know never had.
“That one,” he said, “I can promise.”
Then he was through the doors. Everly didn’t follow. She looked at the floor where his footprints had landed in the mud, her eyes passing a small, pale grey pebble right in front of the door. She untied the fabric strip from her elbow and threw it in the bin instead. The hand, freed from the cloth, found the braid before she’d decided to let it. Her fingers settled on the exact place where his had just been. She couldn’t escape the feeling that he had just said more than he meant to.
Critique(s): https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1uic1bc/2005_litrpg_opening_chapter_attempt_2/